Paula Sherriff – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Paula Sherriff on 2016-07-18.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what procedures are in place to safeguard patient transport services if a private provider of such a service goes into administration.

Mr Philip Dunne

It is the primary responsibility of commissioners to ensure continuity of commissioned services through contracting and contingency planning. Where a provider is considered hard to replace in the event of failure, its services can be designated as Commissioner Requested Services. This requires the provider to obtain a provider licence, if not otherwise required to hold a licence, and places the provider in NHS Improvement’s financial oversight regime for private providers of essential NHS services.